Making Resin Kit:

[jorawar_b]

Hi all,

I wanted to thank everyone who has built these awesome resin model kit, they are awesome and they are keeping the macross interest alive.

I have been thinking of making my own kit, I have no talent in sculpting or making kits out of resin. But what I have are a lot of idea's. I have been reading a lot of articles on the internet on how to, so maybe one day I can start.

I have built custom turbo kits for various different cars, I learned from others on what to do and studied the basic of Air/ Fule ratio's. compression ratio's, timing and working stand alone engine managment system. I am not a mechanic nor am I an engineer, but what I am is someone who like to go fast.

That being said, I have idea's of making custom macross, mospeada, sothern cross, M zero and other kits that are not offered in the macross saga.

One example is a 1/48 scale YF-19, convert it into a RF-4E type recon type aircraft, that is a two seater with a different canopy.

Anyways to make a long story short, I wanted to start group topic on:

1. Is there any part time school classes you can take, for example in sculpting?

2. Are there an good resources for a step by step guide?

3. What are the basic equpiment that one needs to buy befor one begins?

4. What are the do's and don't?

5. I recently got involved with a the BMW 850 group up here in the PNW, (washington state ), B.C area and found out there are like 52 to memebers that get together twice a year or whenever someone needs help on car problems.

to mak this short also, are there any types of model making clubs are MW memebers willing to get together to help with projects? Maybe we can start a MW members and split it up into regions?

I would love to see how many members are in the Seattle, WA and Vancouver, British columbia area. I have a real interest in learning how to make custom resin kits, I would love to get as good as the rest of the master model makers.

I do believe in these following words and I hope there will be others to follow me in on this, because macross is something wonderful and fun to collect and be a part of.

"Ability is what you're capable of doing.

Motivation determines what you do.

Attitude determines how well you do it."

Hope I didn't bore you guys.

Bob

Edited April 18, 2006 by jorawar_b

[promethuem5]

Hmmm... well, I can't answer alot of your questions, but I can give you some ideas. If you are going to be scratchbuilding a kit, make sure you DRAW IT OUT PROPERLY FIRST!! I cannot stress this enough... any time you are going to be making something from nothing, you have GOT to have references. Draw out the entire thing you are amking from various angles, maybe even with an exploded parts view and/or on graph paper. If nothing else, it will help you keep the proportions correct.

I really don' know much about what can and can't be done in resin, but for basic sculpting and such, why not check a few of the local community colleges around you? It's possible that they have a part time Sculpting 101 class that you could take... and then just try to practice alot.

Oh and for equipment, that's easy. A good basic set of sculpting tools and probably some various small kitchen tools. You'll undoubtedly end up hodge-podging together your own tool for various uses, so might as well have the raw meterials there for it.

As for scultping material, check out green Kneadatite, brown Kneadatite, and Aves Apoxie Sculpt. There IS a difference between green (blue and yellow two-part mix) and brown (white and brown I think?)Kneadatite... green does some things well, and I know for a fact that due to different consitencies, brown does sharp edges and details better.

Edited April 19, 2006 by promethuem5

[Sar]

1. Is there any part time school classes you can take, for example in sculpting?

Whilst I've never seen anything specifically on model or kit sculpting, any kind of sculpture will help to an extent. I guess you'd probably get something out of technical drawing classes as well, but I don't know how much.

3. What are the basic equpiment that one needs to buy befor one  begins?

4. What are the do's and don't?

...both of these really depend a lot on what kind of model you're doing and what materials you want to work in.

I'm in the middle of two (mostly stalled) scratchbuilds for 1/144th vehicles for a wargame; one's a rounded Hind-a-like helicopter, for which I'm using wax carving tools and a knife a lot and making pretty much everything out of milliput, the other's a boxy transporter, the whole thing's made from sheet styrene and I'm mostly using a scribe and sandpaper. I've sculpted figures in the past and used a single wax sculpting tool for the whole thing.

At the very least, I'd recommend the same tools as you'd use for building a plastic kit - knife, high-grade sandpaper, pin vice drill, etc. - and add a steel ruler, dividers if you plan on making scale reproductions of plans. Then some other stuff depending on what you're sculpting and what you're sculpting in.

As for scultping material, check out green miliput, brown miliput, and Aves Apoxie Sculpt.  There IS a difference between green (blue and yellow two-part mix) and brown (white and brown I think?) miliput... green does some things well, and I know for a fact that due to different consitencies, brown does sharp edges and details better.

Are you sure you're thinking of Milliput and not Polymeric Systems' Kneadatite? I've seen Milliput come in beige, white, terracotta and grey, but I don't think ever green.

Kneadatite is commonly used for sculpting miniature figures, it's got the consistency of half-chewed gum, comes in green, blue-white and brown varieties (IIRC white is the softest, green somewhere in the middle and brown hardest - can be machined) and typically feels like hard rubber when cured, typically green stuff can be cut or shaved but not really filed or sanded. Milliput is a more clay-like epoxy which hardens to... well, something more like clay... and thus, can be sanded or filed but not cut. Most other epoxy putties I've used have been more like milliput than like green stuff, but I've not tried Aves. Yet. ;-)

Really, the best way to learn sculpting - like pretty much anything - is just to try it yourself. Yes, I'd recommend sketching it out on paper first and using that to cut out sheet styrene to base the construction on, bulk out with putty if necessary... The second-best way to learn sculpting, IMO, is to follow photos of builds other people are doing, you can often pick up how they did something just from the odd photo: Honneamise's here are pretty nice in that respect, and I've also picked up a lot of confidence reading through these builds, although any direct info there is in Japanese.

[Valk009]

I know that there are some great Japanese hobby books around, which even the people here in Hong Kong use to learn and get hints on how to create your own kits!

I am sure they have these same books published in English. The best bet will be to go down to your local hobby store, perhaps one that only sells resin and similar products and they should in theory stock some books on how to make your own kit!

[promethuem5]

Are you sure you're thinking of Milliput and not Polymeric Systems' Kneadatite? I've seen Milliput come in beige, white, terracotta and grey, but I don't think ever green.

Yes Sar, I meant Kneadatite, thanks for catching that. Shows what I know being a miniature person first and a larger scale modeler second I fixed it in my original post.... and have Green Stuff stuck on all my fingertips

[Chas]

Well I think your best bet for sculpting classes would be your local Community College, as has already been said. But if you are serious about learning how to make moulds and cast models try this

Smooth On I've never taken it. I don't know how much it costs. But it sounds like the best introduction to mould makinng/casting you could ever want. If you decide against the course you might find other useful info on that site, so spend some tim and look around.

Good luck.

Charles.

[THOR]

I like to draw blueprints of my kits in AutoCAD. That doesn't mean you cant draw stuff by hand. I like to make side, front/back, top/bottom views of the pieces I need to make. I print out the blueprint on craft-like sticker paper. I cut the design out of the sticker paper using scissors and stick the design on the plastic I'm going to cut my pieces from. I use my table saw or nibbler to follow along the design to get my desired shape.

For square and angular pieces, it's hard to beat a milling machine. With a mill, you basically remove material from a chunk of materal like "butter board". This is one of the techniques Captain America I saw use so I try to do the same thing.

To me the harder but more economical way to make square/angular pieces is to build a box out of flat sheets of plastic. This is simular to how paper models are constructed but in our case we use sheets of styrene instead of paper.

For surfaces which have compound curves, it's hard to beat good old putty/clay. A good sculptor can make extremely convincing reproductions. Machines just add a level of acuracy and repeatibility. Me being an engineer with no sculpting ability, I prefer a solid 3D computer model and a 5-axis CNC router or a stereo-lithography machine. All of that is super overkill for our hobby but that's what i do for a living. The hard part for me is finding 3D solid models of Macross stuff. It takes a lot of time to draw this stuff on CAD software.

I find most of my scratchbuilding inspiration and techniques from MW and fine scale modeler magazine. I'm a mechanical engineer, so I also know/do a fair amount of machine shop and rapid prototyping work, so blueprints and hi-tech are second nature to me. I just need to make more time for my beloved Macross/model hobby.

[Less than Super Ostrich]

So many questions, but I'll throw some tips your way.

I've found the replica prop forum to be particularly useful to learn new scratchbuild techniques. Check out this guy's stuff... it's a nice thread to learn a thing or two:

Replica Prop Forum Starship build thread

[Ignacio Ocamica]

Check this page, this guy sure knows how to sculpt his own kits!!!

Try all the links and you won't be able to pick up your jaw from the floor

Musuke kou